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The Philippine Islands. 
SPEECH 



hon. prj* 



P&K. 



¥cC UMBER, 



of north dakota, 
In the Senate of the United States, 

Friday, May IS, 1900. 
ate^,^SSn\„ M 5 "^"^ ^ ** «» "^ of Sen- 

Ine Secretary read the joint resolution (S. R. 53) defining the 
Follows : theUlllted States '^tivetothe'philippiieSa!^ 

Mr McCUMBER. Mr. President, so exhaustive have been the 
debates and discussions upon this floor and in the nress of the 
country pertaining to the financial and commeret/ benefits to 
be obtained by holding and governing the Philippine Island, 5? 
American territory that it setms to me tobe whSfiy uW essa?v 

sssssssftsssssr upon that important «ss»s5 

SeliSSe SE^ 7 ha ? ] ° St si f ht ' at least to some extent of 
confronted.' qUe8tl0n Wlth wn ' ch the co ™try is to-day 

oblSSfS' * T to me ' have t0 some ext ^t been 
oDscurea in the great maze of presented facts and claims and 

sS^Twfi }? \ SCUr l and somewhat technfcal legal propo 
sitions I wish therefore, to restate and, in a few words consider 

tn? S? 1°* f 8 *? - belieVe 4t P resents ifcself to the grelt maSv of 

SSj&^S tTea%^ e Sp M a£ '' ^ « "^Vjtf 

As a matter of justice, however, I wish to sav ri°ht her P t},,t t 

am not prepared tocomcide with many of thosJ whfb^eve wfth 

s m o?eSn ? eatfonhis a ^t anta f S Wh j ch V chan ^ ' ° f ™ ortte 
KK thl ! na , tlon nave P laced in our hands to lay upon 
Wn?fl^ h f J? 6 mostarden t opponents the blood of all our soldieS 
SI Si ba .- tle ' nor upon their shoulders the entire re°ponsibilftv 
l™ th | « onti nuance of this war; and even if I believed it vv is rn 
longed because of their utterances, I could not but lay thlt it had 




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better be continued one hundred years than that to be expedited 
at the expense of absolute freedom of speech— of the denial of the 
sacred right to express an honest opinion or conviction, springing 
from patriotic motives, no matter how erroneous. ; 

But, in acknowledging the patriotic motives of those who have 
so ardently and strenuously opposed the course of the Administra- 
tion in relation to the .Philippine Islands, I do not wish to be re- 
garded as countenancing the very few covert attacks,' made from 
behind, a painted shield, labeled, "patriotism." It j has been a 
source of great gratification and no little pride to me to know and 
feel that there has been in the great array of talent displayed on 
opposite sides, and in support of opposite views, concerning the 
advisability of entering upon this new course of extraterritorial 
expansion such high patriotic motives. In some very few in- 
stances, however, it has seemed to me that too airy has been the 
gauze thrown around the demon of venom to cover or hide his 
hideous distorted form, much less to transform him into a goddess 
of human liberty. 

In taking up this argument, which should have for its single 
object the determination of what course or which of the few 
courses open to discussion should be pursued by our Govern- 
ment in relation to the territory acquired by treaty from Spain, 
we should proceed from some point on which all reasonable per- 
sons are agreed, or at least where no disagreement based on good, 
substantial reason can properly find place. 

The question of what might have been said or done prior to the 
treaty made with Spain seems to me not to be per tinent at this time. 
The constitutional right to receive and hold these islands has 
been determined by this body in the solemn ratification of our 
treaty. If the action of this court is without authority under the 
Constitution of the United States, there is a clear remedy. The 
failure to invoke that remedy is an acknowledgment of the right. 

There is but one principal question to be considered. What is 
to be done with these islands— retain and govern them or turn 
them over a prey to "other powers or their own internal conflicts? 
In deciding this question we are confronted with but two others: 
First, is this retention for the best interests of our own country? 
Second, is it for the best interests of the Philippine people? And 
as by the very law of nature, neither wrong nor injustice can be 
for the real interest of any people, right and justice must be in- 
cluded in the word "interest." 

That it is for our financial and commercial welfare not the most 
ardent opponent of the Administration will deny. That our com- 
mercial interest demands their retention, that our naval inter- 
est demands their retention, must be admitted. That the financial 
benefits to be derived in the near future are beyond calculation 
must also be admitted. When I realize that in two years, from 
1897 to 1899, our exports to the Philippine Islands alone increased 
from $89,400 in the former year to §1,663,000 in the latter, 
an increase of over 240 per cent; when I note the proximity 
of these islands to the shore of the most densely populated 
region on earth, with its capability of absorbing many times 
over the vast surplus of manufactured and agricultural pro- 
ducts of the world, its people now being environed on all sides 
with the influence of the present century, awakening to its 
demands in food and raiment, so that the value of our future 
commercial relations can with almost mathematical accuracy 
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be measured not by millions but by hundreds of millions of dol- 
lars; when I realize that in our new possessions we have planted 
ourselves at the very gateway of this commerce, and are in 
position to demand of the world that the door of entrance thereto 
be swung wide open and all our treaty rights respected; as I 
look over the mighty expanse of the Orient, that inexhaustible 
held which for thousands of years has furnished the riches of 
the great conrnercial nations of the world; as I view the stupen- 
dous efforts that are being made by the great manufacturing and 
commercial nations to extend their sphere of influence and to o-ain 
control over that country and over its commerce; as I look upon the 
great and growing surplus in our own manufactured and agri- 
cultural products, ever demanding an increasing and widemn°- 
market; as I view the enormous energies that are displayed in the 
great nations of the world to-day for commercial supremacy I 
can not but feel that he who would throw aside this wonderful 
opportunity of the present time must surrender all claims to far- 
seeing statesmanship. 

Turning now to the next question that confronts the American 
people: Is the retention of the islands for the benefit of the Fili- 
pino people themselves? Speaking again from a purely commer- 
cial and financial standpoint, I can conceive of no benefit that may 
be derived by us that will not also be shared in by them. Our in- 
terest will depend, in a direct way at least, upon the development 
ol their great internal resources, and that development, with its 
concurrent commerce, can not but be of inestimable value to 
them, not only financially but because it carries with it a higher 
a broader, and a better civilization. Both propositions— that it is 
tor our financial and commercial benefit and that it is also equally 
for the like benefit of the Filipino people-must be answefed in 
the affirmative. But admitting all of this, the opponents of Amer- 
ican expansion challenge the righteousness of our course, and if 
their contention is correct, if our course or contemplated course is 
wrong or unjust or without the pale of strict honor and integrity 
then no matter what may be the financial and commercial benefits 
to be derived therefrom duty would demand that we desist 

But I maintain, Mr. President, that the attitude of this Govern- 
ment toward the Filipino people is not only honorable and honest, 
but it is just and generous beyond measure; and upon this I am 
willing to meet the opponents of the Administration fairly and 
squarely These islands are now in law and in fact territory be- 
longing to the United States, and to a certain extent at least part 
and parcel of ourselves, as much so as Alaska, Porto Rico, the 
Hawaiian Islands or any other of the territory acquired by us by 
treaty or by purchase. To be sure, we can eliminate-them from 
our jurisdiction; we can release them from our sovereignty; but 
to-day they are American territory, and right here must be the 
starting point of our argument. 

Now, it is claimed that some of these people-and I do not know 
how many of them-wish to be separated irom the United States. 
inis is an important question, one that affects not only the pres- 
ent generation-the present people of those islands-but one which 
\vill have its influence upon them in all the ages vet to come. It 
™™ lm P. orta nt question, one that requires not the exercise of 
mere sentimentality, but one that requires our practical iudg- 
p?trmt S - em supported by the best impulses of our 



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It is a question whether that which they seek — and how many 
are seeking it I am not prepared to say — would in reality be for 
their true interest, would be a blessing or a curse. Some one 
must answer that question. Who is to be the judge whether 
separation from us would in reality be for the best interests of the 
Filipino people? Who is the better qualified to pass upon the 
subject, the most enlightened, the most progressive, the most 
liberty-loving people on the face of the earth, or a band of mis- 
guided and misinformed people of a half civilization? Which is 
the better qualified, I say, to pass upon that subject? Let your 
own conscientious judgment and patriotic hearts answer that 
question. 

In 1861 we refused to allow a highly intelligent portion of our 
own people to decide that question according to their view. In 
1900 we are asked to allow the most ignorant of our population to 
determine it for themselves. Why this inconsistency? What 
logical reason can there be given for refusing to allow a highly 
intelligent people — as intelligent a people as the world possessed — 
to determine that our sovereignty over them was not for their 
interest, were we at this time to admit that a people having no 
knowledge of our free institutions could determine that their 
interest demanded separation? 

Mr. President, there seems to be a contention here on the part 
of the most radical opponents of our foreign policy in relation to 
the Filipinos that these people are to-day, now, in their present 
condition, entitled to absolute independence and the right to 
work out their own destiny. And they say that we commit a 
wrong, a most heinous wrong, in denying them this privilege. 
That depends entirely upon whether that deprivation will in 
reality be for the best interests of these people or whether it will 
be an injury to them. As an enlightened, as an experienced na- 
tion, we know well what qualities are absolutely necessary for the 
foundation of self-government. 

We know also what inherent tendencies, if unrestrained and 
unbridled, will necessarily lead to the subversion of the very prin- 
ciples of self-government, of the very life of liberty. We say that 
these people have not yet sufficiently advanced in the scale of civi- 
lization where they are capable of determining with any degree 
of accuracy the true line between liberty and license, and there- 
fore we do not approach them, as was suggested by the senior 
Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. Hoar] , as a young giant in the 
strength of his manhood, to stifle the longing after liberty in the 
breast of this child of freedom, but as a father, well knowing 
the direful conditions which will result from these unrestrained 
passions and desires, forcibly yet kindly seeks to guide the nobler 
qualities into channels of usefulness and utility while he checks 
each wayward step. 

But we are met in this debate with the assertion — and this is 
an important matter — that we can not, consistently with our theory 
of government and the inherent right of man, govern these people 
without their consent; and to sustain this contention we have 
held up before us that clause in the Declaration of Independence 
which declares that governments are instituted among men, deriv- 
ing their just powers from the consent of the governed, and that 
therefore, without the consent of these people, we can not either 
justly or legally exercise any governmental control over them. 
But the construction which these persons place upon that clause 

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of the Declaration of Independence would destroy any govern- 
ment. It so happens, however, that these words have already in 
the life of our nation been construed, and such construction has 
become by precedent the law and policy of the land. We have 
exercised that control without the consent of the governed in one 
form or another over all the Territories carved out of our vast 
domain. We have made war upon a weaker nation and taken from 
her a portion of her own territory, possibly with the consent of the 
people of the portion taken, but certainly not with the consent of 
the other portion thereof; and if Senators seek to justify this 
narrow, literal construction with the claim or assertion that we 
exercised our control over the portion in dispute between Texas 
and Mexico with the consent of those people alone, and thereby 
admit the right of a minor portion to consent to estrange them- 
selves from the major portion thereof without the consent of the 
latter, by the same law of logic must they also admit the right of 
the rebellion, for none can deny that the government of the South- 
ern Confederacy had the full consent of the people governed 
thereby. That same narrow, literal construction which you ask 
us to adopt to-day was adopted by the people of the Southern 
States when they withdrew themselves from our sovereignty. 
We denied their interpretation, repudiated their claim, and to 
sustain our contention for four years we lavishly poured out 
the blood and treasure of the nation in support of a just, true, 
and intelligent interpretation. 

We claimed — here was the crucial test — that the right of dis- 
sent or consent was not merely capricious or chimerical, but 
must be justly, rightly, and intelligently exercised. That is now 
the policy and law of the country and the construction of those 
words by this Government, written in the very heart's blood of 
the nation itself. We said to the Southern people, " Your want 
of consent is not rightly, is not intelligently, is not justly exer- 
cised. We know our own just and generous intentions toward you. 
We know that you are in error, and we alone, confident that 
our sovereignty over you ever will mean liberty, justice, and 
progress, must determine this question for ourselves and not 
leave it to your biased judgment." And the great majority of 
these same people who, without their consent, were forced to yield 
to our laws, forced to return to our sovereignty, forced to come 
back to the arms that in fact and in reality ever would shield and 
guard their real and their true interests, now almost without ex- 
ception proclaim the righteousness of our course, the error of 
their own in that great conflict. With tenfold ardor will the peo- 
ple of the Philippine Islands applaud this exercise of our best 
judgment, supported by the best impulses of the great sympa- 
thetic American heart for their real interest, when they once 
come to fully understand and comprehend its true meaning. 

Now, Mr. President, I can not agree with the opponents of the 
Administration that the character of the American people has so 
changed that we can no longer trust them to follow or maintain 
the grand traditions of the country. I can not agree with them 
that our banner stands for any different principle now than it has 
in all our past history; that it has a different meaning on one side 
of the ocean than on the other. 

Though denied by the foes of the country, it meant for human- 
ity and human liberty, when our soldiers fought beneath its 
folds, in the long years of the civil war. As history has justified 

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its claim at that time, so just as surely will history justify the 
present just, honorable, and noble purpose of the President of 
this country toward these people. 

What is that purpose? To grant them, and not only to grant 
them but to guarantee them, liberty and protection. You say 
they are entitled to liberty. If by that you mean self-government, 
and you certainly can mean nothing more— you can not mean 
that they are entitled as a matter of right to anarchy — then we 
answer, we can give them self-government to the highest, fullest 
extent of their capabilities. We can give them the only true lib- 
erty, namely, the broadest exercise of individual right consistent 
with the equal rights of all others. 

But we go further; we not only purpose to give them that lib- 
erty, but to guarantee it; and by what other method can that guar- 
anty be maintained than bj r reserving to oursleves, the right — the 
supreme right — to shape and control. 

As I have stated before, I think you must admit that these peo- 
ple have not yet reached that advanced state in the march of 
civilization where they are capable of understanding the true 
principles of self-government, the true reciprocal relations between 
the government and the governed. 

We promise to guide their ship of state into the haven of human 
liberty. Can we, without violation of that promise, turn it over 
to a random crew who have not the slightest idea either of ship- 
craft or of the location of that harbor? If, as assumed by some, 
they are capable of self-government — and by that 1 mean a gov- 
ernment capable of guaranteeing life, liberty, and property rights — 
it will not take long to find it out; and if it be demonstrated that 
they comprehend the true meaning of liberty and free institutions 
and have back of that comprehension the sturdy character of the 
great Germanic and Anglo-Saxon races, the foundation on which 
must ever rest the structure of free government, then I have con- 
fidence in my country that there will be accorded them amplo 
opportunity in which to freely exercise the rights and privileges 
of an intelligent and liberty-loving people. 

If, on the other hand, as we claim, they have not yet reached 
that degree of civilization requisite for proper self-government, 
that they are not yet capable of forming a government and con- 
ducting it in such manner that it will give to its people these 
rights of life, liberty, and property so sacredly guarded in all 
nations of Teutonic or Anglo-Saxon origin, but have within the 
germ from which all this may be evolved, then I want to say to 
the opponents of the Administration's policy that I know of no 
atmosphere more conducive to the growth of the tender flower of 
human liberty than that in which floats its holiest emblem, the 
banner of our own country. I know of no richer soil than that 
which has been baptized with the blood of freedom's sons. I 
know of no influence more potent for good, for right, for justice, 
for civilization than the practical administration by this great 
exponent of human rights, the only republic in spirit as well as 
in name, of its equal laws, conceived in equity and enforced with 
rigid justice and equality, in all the commercial and business 
relations of the country. Fifty years of such influence in these 
islands will produce more advancement, a greater civilization, 
than can be evolved by them in a thousand years if left a prey 
to other great powers and their own internal dissensions. 

I have noticed, as a rule, that the pessimist always ignores every 

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rule of logic in arriving at his direful conclusions. And the pes- 
simistic objectors to American expansion are no exception to the 
rule. In one breath they talk of how up to the present time the 
people of this country have always in their character represented 
the greatest generosity, the broadest and noblest idea of humanity, 
of human liberty, and the inherent rights of mankind the world 
has ever known; they talk of the grandeur of the character of the 
founders of this Republic, of the people who rose in righteous in- 
dignation against the tyranny of monarchy; they tell us how this 
people, the descendants of those great fathers and the children of 
other climes, who, breathing the pure air of political and personal 
freedom, and becoming imbued and permeated with its spirit, 
have unto this day, maintained the sturdy, national character, 
that characteristic spirit of benevolence, of justice, to all people. 

And then they tell us of the injustice, the crime, that will be 
committed by our country, by these same people, against the in- 
habitants of this island, of the greed and love of power, of em- 
pire, that is back of our intention; that these people, now 
amounting to about 80,000,000, born of such parents, have by 
some unknown, some unaccountable freak of nature suddenly 
become arrested in their moral development; that the great law 
of heredity has for the first time in the history of creation been 
violated by the Creator Himself; that the old, stanch, Ameri- 
can spirit is suddenly found to be dead, and that a servile people 
lost to all the virtues of their ancestors, and all of their own, 
which existed up to December, 1898, that the people who in April, 
with hearts bursting in sympathy for human suffering, waged a 
war and gave their blood and treasure for humanity only, in 
December are waging a war for conquest only, and, like demons, 
are hunting down people for prey alone. 

And they proclaim that these people, now numbering about 
80,000,000, will bow like slaves beneath the arm of a military 
power of 100,000 drawn from their own ranks and representing 
their own character, and that militarism will become the govern- 
ing power of the nation. That the people whose ancestors, against 
fearful odds, with an almost superhuman energy, so strong were 
their convictions of right, threw off the yoke of monarchy of 
their own accord are now ready to embrace again this galling 
burden. 

Mr. President, do not these opponents know that such a sud- 
denly changed condition would be as impossible as that the rose 
should bear a thistle or the acorn a willow? 

Never in the history of the world has a people worthy of liberty 
lost their freedom through the acts of their own government. It 
has been only when corruption, effeminacy, and lack of manly 
virtue, through long years of accumulation, had become the 
dominant character of a people that it became possible to trample 
on their rights. 

It was only when they had become servile and cowardly by 
nature that their standing armies became their masters rather than 
their servants. I emphatically deny that any such condition, or 
even the germ of it, exists in our country. 

I assert that the standard of patriotism, of honor, of integrity, and 
justice is just as strong to-day as ever in our history, and upon 
that foundation of American character I believe I can safely 
build my hopes for a glorious outcome of every advanced step in 
our national life, including our territorial expansion. 
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I have a right, therefore, to present these direct questions to the 
opponents of our Philippine policy. Have you not faith in the 
honor of your country? Do you believe that its sovereignty over 
any people on earth will be a detriment to that people? Do you 
not believe that a better civilization will be developed in those 
islands under American control than under any other possible 
conditions? Have you still faith in the sense of justice of the 
American people; and if you have, can not you trust to the future, 
trust your own people, your own country, to do that which is 
right and just and honorable by these people, as a closer acquaint- 
ance with their needs and conditions shall show proper? 

If you lack this faith, if you believe that we have degenerated 
to such a degree that we can not be trusted — if that is your fear, 
then by that spirit of sincerity which should govern every argu- 
ment, by the soul of honesty which should influence every rea- 
son, you should tell the American people of their sad divergence 
from the path of political honor and rectitude, that they may with 
introspective view appreciate the sudden abortion of their moral 
faculties. If you do not believe this, if you do not lack faith in 
the people, then trust them in this matter as in all others. 

If the time ever comes when right, justice, interest, or humanity 
requires that we should release our control, I have confidence in 
my country to do that which is absolute justice. 

Believing myself that the great majority of the American peo- 
ple feel that our country can be trusted in all questions of moral 
duty and right, I am willing to test their faith in a vote of confi- 
dence on this question in the coming campaign. 

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